No matter what happens… somebody will find a way to take it too seriously. – Dave Barry, "Things That It Took Me 50 Years to Learn"

Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; but urge me not to use moderation in a case like the present. – William Lloyd Garrison

He who makes a paradise of his bread makes a hell of his hunger. – Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin